Intimacy as a Spiritual Voyage

In Yoga Journal’s Archives series, we share a curated collection of articles originally published in past issues beginning in 1975. These stories offer a glimpse into how yoga was interpreted, written about, and practiced throughout the years. This article first appeared in the March/April 1981 issue of Yoga Journal. Find more of our Archives here. 

How can one be a seeker, a person on a spiritual path, in the hustle-bustle of life in 20th-century America? I think many of us tend to think of a sadhana, spiritual path, as being somehow separate from our daily life. Yet I believe that we can learn as much about ourselves by confronting the issue of “Who takes out the garbage” as we can in an entire month of doing intensive yoga.

The Couple’s Journey: Intimacy as a Path to Wholeness (Impact Publishers, 1980) is a recent book which offers some fascinating perspectives on how intimate personal relationships provide a vehicle for inner growth. To its author, Susan Campbell, Ph.D., the development of intimacy has more significance than just being pleasant or exciting. Rather, the couple’s journey is to her an important way of learning about oneself, and making the abstract idea of ”uniting with all life” a concrete reality.

Her understanding of the process men and women go through in achieving intimacy has evolved from both her many years as a couples counselor and her personal experience as a woman and wife. Along with others, including her husband Barry McWaters, she opened the Institute for the Study of Conscious Evolution, in San Francisco. This center explores, through its research and educational programs, avenues for effective social change—the evolution of the individual, social institutions, and the planet as a whole. Meeting Dr. Campbell provided me with an opportunity to hear more about her ideas, and to place them in the context of our times.

Relationship Stages, According to Susan Campbell

In her book, Dr. Campbell outlines the five stages most couples go through in developing a relationship. Basically, they are:

1. Romance. Two people come together, and create a shared dream of how life together could be. A feeling of oneness develops, which is aided by ignoring differences which lurk under a surface idyllic happiness.

2. Power Struggle. As the relationship develops, these differences become difficult to ignore and conflict develops. It is now important for partners to communicate their differing needs, and hopefully to negotiate ground rules for the relationship which are acceptable to both.

3. Stability. Having given up the notion that they will be able to change one another, the partners begin to accept one another as separate beings who will not always fulfill each other’s expectations. When conflict develops, each learns to look inward, to see what parts of him/herself are contributing to disunity.

4. Commitment. A recognition grows that a partnership has been created which transcends either person’s identity. The partners perceive themselves as interdependent; for example, as one becomes more assertive, the other may become more passive.

5. Co-Creation. The experience of interdependence and union spills over into the larger world as the couple applies what they have learned during earlier stages to their other relationships. They may also choose at this stage to engage in some joint creative project which will benefit others.

What does it mean to be on a spiritual path, and how can intimacy help to further one on the voyage? For the purpose of this article, I will define a “spiritual path” as the process whereby we strip away more and more of those filters which our individual point of view places over our perception. As we clear away our own quirks, biases and illusions, we begin to see what really is, and to experience the unity of all creation.

A Relationship Is Not Romance

During our talk, Dr. Campbell explained this process. “In the couple’s journey, we have an expectation about who we are together, and then we find that’s not true so we develop another image, and then that’s not right either. We thought we were together to make each other happy, but we’re making each other miserable, so that illusion is gone. Then we think we’re here to change each other into better people, but then we find we can’t change each other. As we keep peeling away who we thought we were, and expanding our identity, we find that love is not romance, love is not power, love is not comfort, love isn’t even commitment. It’s none of those things; it’s something that transcends what you can describe. The same is true with the self. The self transcends all the identifications. There is continually a sort of death and rebirth: the death of an old identification, going through a kind of abyss, a kind of nothingness period, and then re-emerging into something else. And all the time, we’re getting closer and closer to a feeling of oneness with something larger. Because if I’m not any of these things that I can identify, who am I?

“At the same time (and this is another aspect of the spiritual journey that isn’t talked about quite so much), we see that what we do in our life has a big effect on our environment. For example, what my partner does in relationship to me has a big effect on me, and vice versa. As I become aware of this interdependence, I make my choices with a larger and larger vision of the ramifications of these choices. My energy is radiating outward from me all the time, and when I discover how that affects my environment, I am more responsible about what I put out into the world.”

Interdependence Is a Process

The interdependence between partners, of which Dr. Campbell speaks, has to develop over time. It requires of both partners a quality of patience and an ability to surrender to what is. The book states that, “intimacy is a process, a journey of disclosing more and more of oneself to another. It is not a product that comes made-to-wear off the shelf.” Simply put, with intimacy we develop our capacity to step into someone else’s shoes and see the world from his/her perspective. It is easy to speak in the abstract of loving our fellow man and realizing that we are all one, yet in relationships we realize how difficult it is to really achieve unity with just one person. Looked at from this perspective, we see that the Power Struggle phase is a time of mutual work rather than of undesirable conflict. The book points out that “the power struggle can be valuable as a process of pushing against each other’s resistance to change or accommodation in order to develop greater mutual responsiveness. It is often necessary to strongly and persistently assert one’s differing wants or needs in order to have them heard by the other. It is not that the partner doesn’t want to hear, but simply the fact that the two people are different and naturally tend to see the world through the filters of their own wants and needs … If the lessons of The Couple’s Journey are used well, each of us will learn to see how the other, simply by being other than oneself, is contributing to the expansion of one’s own identity. We are forced time and again to see things from a different viewpoint … Thus, what I’m calling the ‘power struggle’ is an expected, normal step toward the achievement of a relationship where power is balanced and shared.”

Holding Up a Mirror to the Self

Conflict between partners may, however, indicate more than the attempts of two separate individuals to adjust to one another. One of the most interesting ideas in The Couple’s Journey is that conflict between people mirrors conflicts within people. Those issues which we have not yet resolved within ourselves are most likely to irritate us when we see them in other people. Dr. Campbell gives an example from her own life: “I for many years picked men who would be critical of me. At that time I wasn’t very self-critical; it was as if I had disowned that and projected it into somebody else. And for a time I fought the man’s critical nature just as I was unconsciously fighting against (by denying) my own. Eventually, however, I recognized my pattern of always picking critical men. I took the theory and tried it on myself, and realized that I did have a self-critical part. As I began to bring that part of myself into my awareness. I didn’t have to choose men like that any more … ” Often we choose a person who mirrors back to us a part of ourselves that we’re not yet aware of. That can be the first step in developing a new relationship with a part of ourselves which has been unconscious. Pretty soon you have the “inner marriage” happening.

This entire process is one of the major tasks of the Stability Stage. The turmoil of the power struggle lessens, since the partners are actually beginning to expand their identities. The book says that, “In a mutually interdependent we-system, we are continually confronted with things that at first seemed ‘other’ than ourselves, but which after a time we learn to accept and even embrace. We learn to use our partnership as a way of overcoming our narrow identities and self-limiting beliefs about ourselves. Furthermore, each person recognizes that individual blocks to intimacy, rather than resistances to the partner as a person, can be responsible for apparent power conflicts. And once partners stop taking such difficulties personally, they can begin to support each other … [the awareness develops that] filling the holes in one’s ‘wholeness’ is a developmental process which takes time … Lack of skill in expressing one’s love does not necessarily mean that the love does not exist.”

As the relationship deepens, its spiritual aspects become more and more prominent. Many spiritual traditions emphasize the development of a “witness” consciousness, a part of the Self which can dispassionately observe the ups and downs of the everyday self. As an intimate relationship develops, the partners begin to see that those parts of the self with which each identifies are continually changing: I must be more than a person needing freedom, because yesterday I was a person needing security. We must be more than today’s angry upheaval, because yesterday we were giggling together like children. As we learn that we are all of these things and more, we come nearer to completeness.

Moving from “I” to “We”

In the Commitment Stage, the spiritual work is further intensified as the couple’s union deepens. By this time, the couple may be experiencing a phenomenon which goes one step farther than the lessons learned to date. A couple may have fought during the Power Struggle phase because one partner was, for example, too “assertive” and the other too “passive.” As the relationship progressed, the “passive” partner may have identified an assertive side within, while the “assertive” partner began to recognize a passive side. Now, as the “passive” partner becomes more assertive, the “assertive” partner suddenly becomes more passive! So, as Dr. Campbell says, “I realize a new basis for a relationship; I realize our interdependence, which is the basic learning of the commitment stage. The ‘I’ mushrooms into the ‘we.’ Everything that I do affects you; everything that you do affects me. Then all our actions are governed by that awareness.” If this is understood, negotiations and compromises may be entered into with the recognition that, “Since we are in a sense two parts of one body, it is not possible for one to ‘win’ at the other’s expense. By giving to you, I give to myself as well.”

The Co-Creative stage is the logical extension of the process which the couple has gone through during the earlier four stages. The spiritual lessons learned on the couple’s journey—the expansion of our “separate” identity, the awareness that we’re parts of a larger whole, the development of the witness consciousness—are seen now as applicable to all relationships beyond the partnership. At this stage, many couples” … seem to feel a natural urge to create something together … It is as if they have accumulated a ‘surplus of creative potential within their relationship and are now impelled toward expressing this potential, toward making a contribution to the community or the world … we are in this way applying, beyond our relationship, the same values and principles we have been applying within it.” Campbell concludes ” … as we become more conscious of the principles and laws which provide the context for all relationships, we begin to understand that we can choose to participate with these laws toward the ends they seem to be fostering. We can cooperate consciously in the evolution of humanity rather than experiencing ourselves as pawns in the game of life.”

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A Conversation With Susan Campbell

An informal interview provided a further opportunity for Virginia Lee and me to ask Dr. Campbell about the many ideas and questions the book raised for us. A portion of that discussion is reprinted below.

Virginia Lee: You speak of couples in the Stability Stage as finding the “marriage within” the self. At that point, do you believe that a person can be so self-fulfilled that s/he doesn’t need a partner?’

Susan Campbell: Well, no, because there’s always a growing edge. You’re never finished. Personal evolution or growth is an unlimited process, so there’s always somewhere new to move.

Carol Cavanaugh: Do you think it’s possible to work on personal growth at the same level without being involved in an intimate relationship?

SC: I think relationship is just one path to inner wholeness. Another path would be a path of meditation, or self-study. These are not necessarily mutually exclusive, although they may be for a time during one’s life. For some, however, the alone path will be the right primary path. For others, the relationship path will be primary.

VL: A lot of people feel they need a spiritual sanction, so they go to a church, get married and take vows. Do you think that this is a prerequisite for a certain kind of commitment or success in a relationship?

SC: I think it’s important that each couple realizes they are together for more than just themselves. There’s something that drew us together that wasn’t just my ego and your ego. If you think you did it all by yourself and for yourself, your relationship is on shaky ground. So I think that having a marriage sanctified, whether it’s by a church or by some kind of community or discipline that both are involved in, is helpful in giving couples a sense of meaning and context.

VL: And it gives you something to go back to when the going gets rough.

SC: Exactly. Because it’s going to get rough. The idea of sacrifice is a very important idea in religious teachings, and the root of that word is “making sacred.” All it means is really that you can’t have your own selfish way all the time, that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. You are coming together to create something which wasn’t exactly what you had in mind. It doesn’t mean sacrifice as in self-denial, but rather a forging of two separate identities into one being.

CC: It seems like we’ve just gone through what people call the “Me” generation, the 70’s, and we’re seeing a lot of people breaking up, and a lot of people not interested in forming a relationship with one another. There seems to be a very negative connotation on the whole idea of sacrifice. Do you agree with that, and how do you see this phase?

SC: The word sacrifice does have different connotations to different people. When I think of the kind of sacrifices that, say, mothers often make for their children or their husbands, those are often unconscious sacrifices. Then twenty years later they realize they didn’t want to be making these sacrifices, resent it, and determine to even the score in some way. That’s not the kind of sacrifice that makes anything sacred, but it is a step on the way to learning about what giving really is. You learn that you overgave; you learn how not to give more than you can willingly give, and how much yielding you are truly able to allow. People have to go through a stage of taking care of themselves, and I don’t want to knock that. But I think we’re at a time now where more and more people are seeing that sacrifice doesn’t have to be a negative thing. There’s a need in people to participate in what’s happening around us, to give back to the world and not just take. In fact, in my work as a psychotherapist, I see that most neurotic symptoms seem to be a holding back from giving what you have, from participating in life. It’s kind of trying to get away without living life. What people really need is to get in there and exchange their energy with other people. Giving and receiving is what makes life. And that requires sacrifice at times.

VL: I lived through the “me” generation, and got to do a lot of things for myself, and it was interesting, but not totally fulfilling. I want something of a deeper dimension. The identity that is created by a couple and a family is a greater challenge; it’s beyond just you. It’s exciting, because you can’t control the other elements of that identity and you have to really surrender. It can be hard if you’re used to running the show.

SC: The concept of surrender is very important as part of a spiritual journey. To be able to see what is, that’s what we’re really surrendering to, instead of our idea of what should be. So, what’s real? What’s real keeps changing on this journey, and my vision keeps getting clearer as I work on myself. The same thing happens with the couple’s journey. Your vision keeps getting clearer and clearer and you keep transcending stereotypes about roles and expectations. Pretty soon you find that you as a couple are totally unique; you’re not like any other couple. You’re doing it your way. That point is very difficult to reach, and that’s where true co-creativity is possible, because you’re really contributing to the world from your own uniqueness. You begin to ask, “What does the world need from me?” It’s like getting in touch with your true soul, your true calling in life, and blending that with somebody else’s. It’s not just that every individual has a calling. Any pair that comes together for any significant period of time also has a calling, a purpose. But you can’t really tune into what it is until you’ve let go of an awful lot of illusions.

VL: I have a question about couples banding together to live communally. Once each couple gets their own identity together and are at the co-creative stage, they might decide they want to share their lives with other couples, share families so the kids can grow up together and take their role models not just from two parents. What do you think of that?

SC: I think that will be the next stage in our evolution toward a feeling of worldwide community. To learn from your own partnership is one step, and then to join with other couples, or other people of different ages, and work out the same journey, is another. You learn even more how to deal creatively with diversity, how to harmonize differences and form wholes out of parts. That’s humanity’s next stage. It’s like being a couple is practice for this next stage, and this next stage is practice for all of those different communities linking themselves into a global sense of community, which is where I believe we’re ultimately heading.